When Mister Rainbow finds a headless honcho in a King’s Cross alleyway, the tattoo around the corpse’s neck leaves little doubt as to its identity. Thomas L. Tycho was everybody’s enemy – a trickster, a dirty dealer, and a wide boy who made the mistake of wide boys the world over – not making himself a great deal narrower when the gun went off.

The killer’s identity, however, proves more elusive – as everybody hated Tommy, anybody could have popped him. His wife, his girlfriend, and half of Sydney’s underworld all had motive, but Mister Rainbow smells something fishy, and it’s got nothing to do with what’s floating in the harbour …